Manchester City’s Rodri says Partey will be very important player for Arsenal and calls Arteta ‘an animal’

Manchester City midfielder Rodri says former Atletico Madrid teammate Thomas Partey will be a very important player for Arsenal, according to Sky Sports.

The 24-year-old played with the Ghana international at Atletico Madrid during the 2018/19 season and the two players worked in tandem to help Diego Simeone’s side dominate the midfield battle. Both players developed into world class midfielders in Madrid and earned moves to Manchester City and Arsenal. Rodri signed for Pep Guardiola’s side in the summer of 2019 and Partey joined the Gunners one year later.

On Partey, Rodri said:

“I have good memories of playing with Thomas – we played a lot of games together. We controlled the midfield of the team in that season. He’s two years older than me, but we’re a similar age and he’s a very funny guy. We had a good friendship so it’s good to see your old team-mates again. Let’s see if he’s ready for Sunday, but he will be a very important player for Arsenal.”

The Spanish midfielder struggled initially after signing for Manchester City for just under 63 million in 2019. It has been reported that Mikel Arteta, who was the Manchester City assistant manager at the time, did a lot of individual work with the former Atletico Madrid midfielder and helped him flourish in the Premier League.

Arteta departed the Etihad six months after Rodri’s arrival to take the reins at Arsenal and Rodri has no doubt the Spaniard will be a big success in North London. The Manchester City midfielder believes Arteta’s best quality is the amount of work he puts in to help his players better their game.

On Arteta, he said:

“Mikel has been very important for this club in the past few years. I worked with him for six months, and in this short period, he taught me a lot of things in training about how to position myself in games. I’m lucky as both he and Pep played as midfielders, so it was easier for them to teach me how to play.”

“He’s such a nice guy and I believe his best quality is that he works like an animal in order to help his players improve. I appreciate what he taught me a lot. He has his own identity as a manager and needs time to develop his team.”

“He’s got great players in order to achieve that. It’s not easy in the Premier League as we know how high the level is, but we’re expecting a very tough game on Sunday. If we are to keep the rhythm of victories, we’ll need to be at our best.”